Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after years fighting in the First World War. Unknown to his colleagues he is still suffering from shell shock, and is burdened with the guilt of having had executed a young soldier on the battlefield for refusing to fight. A jealous colleague has learned of his secret and has managed to have Rutledge assigned to a difficult case which could spell disaster for Rutledge whatever the outcome. A retired officer has been murdered, and Rutledge goes to investigate.

Wings of Fire: Ian Rutledge, Book 2

When reclusive war poet Olivia Marlowe and her half-brother, Nicholas Cheney, die together in their ancestral home on the Cornish coast, it looks like suicide. The grieving relatives gather together to discuss the fate of Barcombe Hall, when another shocking death occurs. Inspector Rutledge, who is still shell-shocked from his experiences in the Great War, is sent from Scotland Yard to investigate. Rutledge is soon convinced that the answers to this baffling case lie within the family’s secret history.

Search the Dark

Dorset is the latest setting for the talents of Inspector Ian Rutledge, a veteran of the First World War still haunted, literally, by his actions. Indeed, his personal ghost only serves to complicate things as his inner doubts blend into the trauma of the case.

Legacy of the Dead: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

The weathered remains of Eleanor Gray are found on a Scottish mountainside, and her mother, the domineering Lady Maude Gray, requires delicate treatment. This is a case that will lead Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard to Scotland, where his harrowing journey to find the truth will drag him back through the fires of his past into secrets that still have the power to kill.

Watchers of Time

Charles Todd brings his classic mystery series to a new level of intensity and intrigue. The year is 1919, and Ian Rutledge is a fragile yet courageous former soldier searching for his place in a post-war world. Now a Scotland Yard detective, Rutledge is called upon to probe a murder in the small Norfolk town of Osterley - but he soon discovers that the crime may be connected to one of the greatest disasters of all time…

A Fearsome Doubt

In 1912 Ian Rutledge watched as a man was condemned to hang for the murders of elderly women. Rutledge helped gather the evidence that sent Ben Shaw to the gallows. And when justice was done, Rutledge closed the door on the case. But Shaw was not easily forgotten. Now, seven years later, that grim trial returns in the form of Ben Shaw's widow Nell, bringing Rutledge evidence she is convinced will prove her husband's innocence. It's a belief fraught with peril, threatening both Rutledge's professional stature and his faith in his judgment. But there is a darker reason for Rutledge's reluctance.

A Cold Treachery: Inspector Ian Rutledge, Book 7

Called out by Scotland Yard into the teeth of a violent blizzard, Inspector Ian Rutledge finds himself confronted with one of the most savage murders he has ever encountered. Rutledge might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields, where he’d lost much of his soul - and his sanity - but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale. Someone has murdered the Elcott family at their table without the least sign of struggle.

A Fine Summer's Day: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

On a fine summer's day in June, 1914, Ian Rutledge pays little notice to the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo. An Inspector at Scotland Yard, he is planning to propose to the woman whom he deeply loves, despite intimations from friends and family that she may not be the wisest choice.

A Pale Horse

Late on a spring night in 1920, five boys cross the Yorkshire dales to the ruins of Fountains Abbey, intent on raising the Devil. Instead, they stumble over the Devil himself, sitting there watching them. Terrified, they run for their lives, leaving behind a book on alchemy stolen from their schoolmaster. The next morning, a body is discovered in the cloisters of the abbey--a man swathed in a hooded cloak and wearing a gas mask.

A Matter of Justice: Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries

After two London men end their business partnership, one of them is savagely murdered in a medieval tithe barn on his estate in Somerset. Investigating the killing, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge discovers that the victim was universally despised in Cambury - even the victim's wife and the town's police inspector are suspect. And yet in London circles, the man was highly regarded. What triggered his death?

A Long Shadow: Inspector Ian Rutledge, Book 8

Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge brought the Great War home with him, and its horrors haunt him still. On New Year’s Eve 1919, he finds a brass cartridge casing, similar to countless others he’d seen on the battlefield, on the steps of a friend’s house. Soon there are more, purposely placed where he is sure to discover them. Unexpectedly drawn away from London to a small Northamptonshire village, he investigates the strange case of a local constable shot with a bow and arrow.

A Lonely Death: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

Three men have been murdered in a Sussex village, and Scotland Yard has been called in. It's a baffling case. The victims are soldiers who survived the horrors of the Great War only to meet a ghastly end in the quiet English countryside two years later. Each had been garroted, with small ID disks left in their mouths. But even Scotland Yard's presence doesn't deter this vicious and clever killer.

The Red Door: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

June 1920. In a house with a red door lies the body of a woman who has been bludgeoned to death. Rumor has it that two years earlier, she'd painted that door to welcome her husband back from the Front - only he never came home. Meanwhile, in London, a man suffering from a mysterious illness first goes missing and then just as suddenly reappears. He is unable to explain his recovery. Inspector Ian Rutledge must solve the cases.

A False Mirror: Inspector Ian Rutledge, Book 9

An officer who served with Rutledge in the trenches of France before being sent back to England under suspicious circumstances has now been accused of savagely beating the husband of the woman he still loves. The suspect has taken the wife hostage, threatening to kill her and her maid unless Rutledge takes charge of the investigation. Although the case painfully mirrors Rutledge's own past and the love he lost to another man, he cannot refuse it.

Proof of Guilt: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery, Book 15

London, summer 1920. An unidentified body appears to have been run down by a motorcar and Ian Rutledge is leading the investigation to uncover what happened. While the signs point to murder, vital questions remain: Who is the victim? And where, exactly, was he killed? One small clue leads Rutledge to a firm built by two families, famous for producing and selling the world's best Madeira wine. Lewis French, the current head of the English enterprise, is missing. But is he the dead man? And does either his fiancée or his jilted former lover have anything to do with his disappearance - or possible death?

Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery, Book 16

A society wedding at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire becomes a crime scene when a man is murdered. After another body is found, the baffled local constabulary turns to Scotland Yard. Though the second crime had a witness, her description of the killer is so strange it's unbelievable. Despite his experience, Inspector Ian Rutledge has few answers of his own. The victims are so different that there is no rhyme or reason to their deaths. Nothing logically seems to connect them - except the killer. As the investigation widens, a clear suspect emerges. But for Rutledge, the facts still don't add up, leaving him to question his own judgment.

The Confession: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

Declaring he needs to clear his conscience, a dying man walks into Scotland Yard and confesses that he killed his cousin five years earlier during the Great War. When Inspector Ian Rutledge presses for details, the man evades his questions, revealing only that he hails from a village east of London. With little information and no body to open an official inquiry, Rutledge begins to look into the case on his own. Less than two weeks later, the alleged killer’s body is found floating in the Thames, a bullet in the back of his head.

A Duty to the Dead: A Bess Crawford Mystery

The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his patriotic footsteps, volunteering to serve her country as a nurse during the Great War. In 1916 she promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to a brother. When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference.

A Question of Honor: Bess Crawford, Book 5

In the latest mystery from New York Times best-selling author Charles Todd, World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford investigates an old murder that occurred during her childhood in India, a search for the truth that will transform her and leave her pondering a troubling question: How can facts lie? Bess Crawford enjoyed a wondrous childhood in India, where her father, a colonel in the British Army, was stationed on the Northwest Frontier. But an unforgettable incident darkened that happy time....

An Unmarked Grave: A Bess Crawford Mystery, Book 4

In the spring of 1918, the Spanish flu epidemic spreads, killing millions of soldiers and civilians across the globe. Overwhelmed by the constant flow of wounded soldiers coming from the French front, battlefield nurse Bess Crawford must now contend with hundreds of influenza patients as well. However, war and disease are not the only killers to strike. Bess discovers, concealed among the dead waiting for burial, the body of an officer who has been murdered.

An Unwilling Accomplice: Bess Crawford, Book 6

Arriving in London on leave, Bess Crawford receives an unusual summons from the War Office. She's been requested to accompany a wounded soldier to Buckingham Palace, where he's to be decorated for gallantry. Though she is certain she's never met or nursed Sergeant Jason Wilkins, she cannot refuse the honor. Heavily bandaged and confined to a wheelchair, the soldier will be in her care for barely a day. But on the morning after the ceremony when Bess goes to collect her charge for his return journey, she finds the room empty.

A Bitter Truth: A Bess Crawford Mystery

When battlefield nurse Bess Crawford returns from France for a well-earned Christmas leave, she finds a bruised and shivering woman huddled in the doorway of her London residence. The woman has nowhere to turn, and propelled by a firm sense of duty, Bess takes her in.

Malice at the Palace

While my beau, Darcy, is off on a mysterious mission, I am once again caught between my high birth and empty purse. I am therefore relieved to receive a new assignment from the queen - especially one that includes lodging. The king's youngest son, George, is to wed Princess Marina of Greece, and I shall be her companion at the supposedly haunted Kensington Palace. My duties are simple: help Marina acclimate to English life, show her the best of London, and, above all, dispel any rumors about George's libertine history.

A Dangerous Place: Maisie Dobbs Mysteries, Book 11

Spring 1937. In the four years since she left England, Maisie Dobbs has experienced love, contentment, stability - and the deepest tragedy a woman can endure. Now all she wants is the peace she believes she might find by returning to India. But her sojourn in the hills of Darjeeling is cut short when her stepmother summons her home to England; her aging father, Frankie Dobbs, is not getting any younger.

Down Among the Dead Men

In a Sussex town on the south coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls' school disappears without explanation. None of her students miss her boring lessons, especially since her replacement is a devilishly hunky male teacher with a fancy car. But then her name shows up on a police missing persons list. What happened to Miss Gibbon, and why does no one seem to care?

Publisher's Summary

Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after years fighting in the First World War. Unknown to his colleagues he is still suffering from shell shock, and is burdened with the guilt of having had executed a young soldier on the battlefield for refusing to fight. A jealous colleague has learned of his secret and has managed to have Rutledge assigned to a difficult case which could spell disaster for Rutledge whatever the outcome.

A retired officer has been murdered, and Rutledge, fighting the torment of his illness, goes to investigate. As he digs into the lives of the villagers, the witness who disturbs him most is a war-ravaged ex-soldier who chills Rutledge with the realization that he could become like this man.

Inspector Rutledge returns to his position at Scotland Yard after long and horrendous combat service as an officer in World War I. He has been damaged in soul and psyche, and in ways that make him one of the most fascinating detectives in the genre. This first book in the series is truly special, well written, compelling, and different.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend listening to this narration. Even though I've read the book (albeit a number of years ago), I found myself totally confused almost from the beginning as to which character was speaking. We become so used to narrators who handle multiple-character dialog well (even if they don't always sound like we think a beloved character should) that it's a shock to listen to someone with this little skill at voice differentiation. In scenes where Rutledge is conducting interviews, it's almost impossible to follow the flow of questions and answers and the vital information (the plot is fairly complicated) that emerges from these interviews.

There's nothing "wrong" with Giles's voice, he just doesn't use it well. Read the book, skip this audio.

We started listening to the Ian Rutledge series in the middle, so going back to the beginning for context has been helpful. As a rule, I enjoy mysteries with complex plots that may not have tremendous amounts of actions. I do think the latter books are better written but one might expect that as a series develops.

Simon Prebble is a far better narrator, however. Samuel Giles is rather flat and it is difficult to distinguish voices. I am hoping he isn't used for future Rutledge novels.

You can count on novels in this series to be solid historical police procedurals without egregious gore, violence, sex or language -- but this one still just misses a four star rating from me. Some of the plot elements didn't flow well, some of the language just a little too modern, and perhaps the novel is longer than it needed to be --but still, this is strong as a first novel in a period series.

Although we learn a little about Hamish in each subsequent novel, it was interesting to meet him (it?) in the first. I am accustomed to the talented Simon Prebble as narrator of later instalments, but I preferred Samuel Gilles as Rutledge (and usually I don't like Gilles).

If you're new to this series, it's worthwhile starting here, and if you're already a fan, meet Hamish again for the first time.

I believe this might have been the first of the Ian Rutledge series--which has gone on to become most excellent in every respect!

In this book, Rutledge comes back after the Great War and takes back the place he gave up at Scotland Yard to enter the military. He has come back with shell shock (something he does not want his fellow detectives to know, which largely manifests as his hearing the voice of a dead comrade.) He has also faced the devastation of having his fiance break off their engagement because she cannot now bear to be married to him, suffering as he is. Getting back to work is a big challenge for him, so he desperately hopes to succeed.

However, his superior dislikes him, and sends him to handle a murder that could end his career--before it even gets going again, due to the extreme sensitivity of people involved. When Rutledge gets to the town where the murder has occurred, he has to face people who have also been involved in the war, and try to decide whether a highly respected war hero has committed a murder. This will bring up a lot of personal pain and memories for Rutledge, that he has to manage, even while handling a complicated case.

Having read all the books in the series, I can see a few things in this early work that seem to have changed in later ones, such as occasionally shifting to separate thought processes or dialogues between other characters--showing their point of view in that way. In later works it seems that CT gets away from that style, going more to the reader gaining the perspective of other characters through inference from events--much as Rutledge himself has to do (which I personally prefer).

All of this series is among the best out there (in my opinion). I have read all of them (including the Bess Crawford series which Todd has also written. ) The narrator is quite good--with only the comment that it is hard to tell the difference between speakers--but that largely was no problem at all. HIGHLY RECOMMEND anything by Charles Todd. This early book is not quite up to their style and skill that will soon emerge--but well worth reading.

In this first novel of the series, Rutledge is just returning from fighting in the Great War to his job as an inspector for Scotland Yard. This is his first case since his return, and he is left shattered by his war experience. I started this series in the middle because the first books were not available from Audible at that time. I really like the series (and it just keeps getting better). This first book in the series is good, but, beyond that, it answered a couple of question about characters in the series that had disturbed me. I never understood how Rutledge could have sentenced Hamish to death. I also never understood why his Scotland Yard supervisor resents him so much and tries to set him up for failure. Both of those things are mentioned in the later novels but not really explained. These novels have no overly graphic descriptions of torture, rape, violence or sex -- just ordinary characters who behave as you would expect them to under the circumstances and a mystery to be solved, while Rutledge struggles to regain his sanity. It is a series I highly recommend.

I too was glad to hear the 1st book. It makes understanding the later one easier. The narrators strong Scottish accent bothered me a bit. Only Hamish is Scottish. The mystery is very well developed and enjoyable. The story could have been shorter.

I really expected to like this book because one of my favorite Audible.com reviewers did. However, I can't recommend it.

There is one well-drawn character in this book, and that is Hamish, the Scottish soldier who "haunts" main character Ian Rutledge. It is a brilliant and effective technique for author Todd to use, and I applaud him. However, I couldn't distinguish between any of the female characters or most of the male characters. I never developed any real picture of them, never developed opinions or attachments or interest, and was often confused. ("Which character said/did that?") I am not sure if a different narrator would have made a difference, but I doubt it.

And, the ending. Wow. It was out of left field, in a way that made me roll my eyes. I won't spoil it for you, but I'll say that what Todd wants us to believe is outrageous and unlikely in the extreme. Puleeze.

Perhaps the narrator just talks like that himself and can't help it. His diction is faultless and every word was clear, but their was no expression, which was very distracting. I thought perhaps he was purposely trying to portray an upper class Englishman and overdid it. But I have listened to many English narrators that I enjoyed. I have read or listened to this entire series and after finishing the last book, which was a prequel set before the war, I decided to experience the entire series again. It has been a long time since I began reading Ian Rutledge mysteries; it was before I became an audiobook fan. So I had read the print edition of this, but couldn't remember the plot completely. If the narrator is the same on subsequent books, I will go to print editions for them.

I really enjoyed this story. The mystery unfolds slowly. The plot twists are developed in a believable way. The ending seemed a little abrupt, but this is a good start to a great series. The main character, Ian Rutledge, is an appealing, believable character, with an interesting back story. I look forward to more books in this series.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

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